From Palestine With Love
From Palestine With Love
There is still hope to be found here, and much goodness, and no small amount of courage.
August 23rd, 2024. Ramallah, Palestine
I must begin with an apology for my lack of activity lately. It has been a stressful month traveling and preparing the logistics for filming the next part of our Lifeline documentary about Palestinian refugees. I have spent the last month in Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna, Cairo, and now I write to you from the city of Ramallah.
Yes, I finally made it to Palestine.
Arriving here was something of a surreal experience for me. For many months now, Palestine has haunted my dreams and my waking thoughts. I have become so invested in the plight of her people, her land, her culture, that to arrive here for the first time feels somehow like meeting a very old friend, one you have not seen in a very long time.
The logistical worries and political turmoil that plagued our travel plans have given way to a sense of deep peace, and a feeling that I am right where I need to be at this moment. My team is here to do a job, to tell a story, and then to leave. But everything about this place draws me into it with an irresistible and potent invitation. This welcome comes most strikingly from its people.
Arriving in Palestine felt somehow like meeting a very old friend, one you have not seen in a very long time.
Much ink has been spilled about the bravery of the Palestinian people, their passionate resilience, their courageous determination and long-suffering. It is as if much of the world seems content to hold up Palestinians as perpetual martyrs and little else. They shake their heads, and echo Anthony Bourdain’s stirring assessment that “these days everything is Made in China. Except courage. Courage is Made in Palestine.”
Missing in this portrait is something I have come to learn about Palestinians in recent months: the overwhelming kindness that shines through their every word and small act. The hospitality they show to complete strangers, even strangers whose tax dollars directly sponsor their continued suffering. Their love of home, of land. The lust for life that animates their music, their dance, their conversation.
I come from the American South, a part of the United States that is famous for its warmth and hospitality. For months I have travelled the Middle East speaking with Palestinians in their homes, at their places of work, and their favorite haunts. The welcome I’ve experienced in Palestinian refugee camps, in living rooms, in cafes and courtyards from Beirut to Tulkarm puts the Southern Hospitality I was raised with to shame.
This project took me first to Lebanon, then to Jordan. I met many wonderful Palestinians in both places. But I always knew my journey would have to lead me here, to Palestine, the point of origin, the heart of the story. The heart of the pain, the love, the courage, and the suffering that poured forth like water onto a rock, only to be ignored by the world for so many years.
I am still processing the emotions that coursed through me when I first laid eyes on Palestine’s famed olive groves, when I was offered my first slice of Palestinian watermelon, and when I first came face to face with the daily realities of the occupation. Every vista, every interaction, every moment is a testament to the twin streams of hope and sorrow that wind their way through this land.
The fact that these dear people could be subject to such cruel hostility gives the lie to every condescending claim of moral superiority that the West has ever conjured. I have met Vietnamese grandmothers horribly disabled by Agent Orange, Cambodian children missing legs as a result of encountering unexploded American ordnance, but it is here in Palestine that I have encountered the starkest contradictions inherent within the “American-led, rules-based world order.” Ask the Palestinians how they feel about America’s global commitment to human rights and political freedom. Their very existence mocks the pretense of morality and “civilization” upon which our diplomacy is built.
Every vista, every interaction, every moment is a testament to the twin streams of hope and sorrow that wind their way through this land.
Despite all of this, Palestine lives. It breathes with life and vigor, despite every elaborate effort to extinguish it. Despite every attempt to erase its history, its culture, its identity. There is still hope to be found here, and much goodness, and no small amount of courage. There is hidden strength here that not even the bombs and bulldozers can destroy.
This reflection has been quite brief, for my team has a very busy day tomorrow, entailing a high degree of sensitivity and no small amount of risk. The last few days have demonstrated the critical necessity of our story reaching the ears of a broader audience. I firmly believe that, once it is ready, this story will serve as an important window into the ongoing struggle faced by the Palestinians living in refguee camps across the Middle East, and the lone organization standing between them and near total destitution.
There is still hope to be found here, and much goodness, and no small amount of courage.
My fervent hope is that our documentary project will help to humanize this beautiful people in the eyes of an uncaring and unfeeling Western public. My aim is to soften even the hardest of hearts, particularly those who hold the future of UNRWA in the balance. If my team can accomplish this, I will feel that we have played a small role in helping others navigate the great moral crisis of my lifetime: the war on humanity that is playing out in the crumbling buildings, broken bodies, and ruined olive groves of Palestine.
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I agree with your assessment of Palestine and Palestinians. I was there in March 2023 and it was amazing